I had my answer a second later as he ran out from behind the Dumpster and headed back in the direction from which we’d come. There was a small runoff ditch beside the parking lot that he plowed through, water splashing everywhere as I followed him back to the blacktop. I was closer now because I’d waited for him to make his move, but he was still faster than me. I was going to lose him and with him, my credit cards, driver’s license and a very expensive tube of my favorite lipstick. Lucky my keys had been in my hand to open the door.
We kept running through the parking lot. I wasn’t sure which way he’d turn. One way went up to the boardwalk again and the other way went right down into the sound. He might lose me in the gathering crowds starting to shop. If he ran down into the water, I had him.
Then something amazing happened. Tim Mabry jumped down from the boardwalk right on top of the purse snatcher. The boy crumpled under his weight. Suddenly everyone noticed what was going on and took an interest. Where were they when I was trying to save my property?
“You need this boy for something?” Tim grinned as he hauled the young man to his feet.
“H-he . . . stole . . . my . . . p-purse.” I tried to catch my breath, but couldn’t seem to get enough air into my poor lungs. I leaned against the side of the stairs with a dozen people staring down on us.
“Purse snatcher, huh?” Tim yanked my purse from the thief’s hands. “You know, we may have to have a little talk about where you were Fourth of July. We have a purse missing that might be part of an important murder case.”
“Should you tell him that?” I wondered, gratefully accepting my purse from him. “Won’t that mess up the investigation?”
“I don’t think that’s a problem, Mayor. You don’t worry your pretty head about it. We’ll take care of everything.”
His tone set my teeth on edge as it always did, but I couldn’t complain. He’d stopped the purse snatcher and rescued my lipstick. I knew what was coming next, and I accepted it graciously. When he asked me out for dinner, I said yes. How could I say no even though I knew another marriage proposal waited for me after the last course?
Tim handcuffed the young man and then led him to his police car parked on the far side of the lot. As I watched him put the purse snatcher in the backseat and then climb into the driver’s seat, I thought about how desperate the young man had to be to steal my purse. I was far from looking like someone who had money. Maybe everyone had turned him down for a job, and stealing was his only recourse.
“I’d like to weigh in on that,” Trudy said after I’d told her about the incident later that morning. “You’re going to have to suck it up and testify against that little weasel. He could’ve hurt you when he took your purse. Don’t feel sorry for him.”
We were in Missing Pieces, and I was watching my customers pick things up and put them back down. “No one starts out bad. He was desperate. I could see that in his face.”
“Maybe. But everyone’s desperate at one time or another. It doesn’t give them the right to steal. And I heard what Tim said. He thinks that boy could be involved in Miss Elizabeth’s death. How can you even think about his motives?”
I had already heard that speech from Gramps and Shayla earlier. News traveled fast in Duck. By eleven A.M. everyone had heard the story, and by noon had added their own embellishments. The young man had become a large, muscular brute who’d picked me up and slammed me against the wall. He’d left me there to die, taking my purse and most of the money from the cash register in Missing Pieces. That’s the way small-town gossip works.
Nothing they said changed my mind. I still felt sorry for the young man. And I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t given him some kind of job when he’d asked me. It might’ve made a difference.
Trudy finally got tired of trying to convince me she was right. She had a client under the hairdryer and left a few minutes later. Despite the crowd of shoppers around the boardwalk, the day was slow for me. Souvenirs and beach clothes seemed to be moving a lot faster than treasures.
But there was one astute shopper who was looking at a garnet necklace I’d bought from an old woman in Wilmington one winter. It was one of my special finds. The research I’d done on it pointed to its owner having been the wife of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. My fingers had tingled when I had touched it. The garnet was good and the chain was old gold, but the real value lay in its ownership.
The woman, her white hair piled high on her head, sunglasses hanging around her neck, pointed to it in the glass case. “What’s that?”
I held my breath, then slowly let it out. “It’s a necklace that once belonged to Sarah Knox Taylor Davis.”
“But what is it? Is it a ruby?”
“No. It’s a garnet.”
The woman smacked her gum a few more times and scratched her arm where her sunburn was peeling. “Is that like a ruby?”
“No. It’s completely different.”
“So who’s this Davis woman? Does she live around here?”
This was painful. I didn’t want this woman to buy my garnet necklace. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for a long time. There’s a jeweler right up the road. I’m sure he has some nice rubies you can look at.”
Smack. Smack. Smack. “Naw. I think I want this one. How much is it?”
I quoted her an awful, outrageous price. “I can’t let it go for less than that.”
“That’s crazy! I’ll give you a hundred dollars. That’s what I’ve got. Do you gift wrap?”
Since I’d quoted her five thousand dollars, I laughed. “I’m sorry. You can’t have it.”
She looked at me as if she thought she’d misunderstood. “You can’t be serious. That piece of junk isn’t even worth a hundred. You can’t make that much here in a day.”
We both surveyed the empty shop. “That’s not the point. I told you the price. I won’t take less.”
“I am so out of here. You’re crazy, you know?”
Watching her leave, her pencil-thin legs wobbling on high-heeled sandals, I agreed. She was the closest thing to a real sale I’d had that day. I had sold a few trinkets I’d gotten at the Presbyterian church rummage sale last spring but nothing of any great value. A few people came in for their UPS packages and dropped a few off. Not much to live on.
As I was about to call it a day at four P.M., Kevin came through the door and stopped to admire the place. “Wow! You really have a lot of junk.”
“Some of that is very good junk,” I told him. “Some of it is even very expensive junk.”
“Sorry. I didn’t come to make you angry. I have a warning.”
“That sounds ominous.” I gravitated toward the burgundy sofa in the middle of the shop.
“Well, since you haven’t done anything wrong, it won’t be a big deal. The SBI had me come in this morning to talk about finding Miss Elizabeth and about you.”
“What about me?” I scooted over so he could sit down on the sofa. “I told Chief Michaels everything I know.”
He shrugged, and I noticed the Blue Whale Inn T-shirt he was wearing. “It’s standard procedure. If I were investigating this case, I’d bring you in too.”
“Should I say anything about finding Miss Mildred’s watch?”
“That’s up to you.” He glanced toward a painting of a dog running up the seashore. “Hey! I like that. It might look good in my lobby.”
“In other words, you already told them I find things.”
“I didn’t have to. They talked to Chief Michaels, and he filled them in. It was really only a matter of time anyway. I couldn’t deny I knew you were psychic. How much for the painting?”